


Discussion

by Anonymous



Category: The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Gen, Hypnosis, Memory Wipe, Vampires, addition fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-18
Updated: 2019-03-18
Packaged: 2019-11-23 12:31:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18151919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Silas and Scarlett have a much needed conversation.





	Discussion

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what the rules are for this kind of stuff, but just in case: forewarning that there are a few paragraphs taken directly from the book at the beginning and end. I don't own it. I also don't know shit about copyright laws can you tell

Scarlett took a step away from him. She said, “You aren’t a person. People don’t behave like you. You’re as bad as he was. You’re a monster.”

Bod felt the blood drain from his face. After everything he had been through that night, after everything that had happened, this was somehow the hardest thing to take. “No,” he said. “It wasn’t like that.” 

Scarlett began to back away from Bod. 

She took one step, two steps, and was about to flee, to turn and run madly, desperately away through the moonlit graveyard, when a tall man in black velvet put a hand on her arm, and said, “I am afraid you do Bod an injustice. But you will undoubtedly be happier if you remember none of this. So let us walk together, you and I, and discuss what has happened to you over the last few days, and what it might be wise for you to remember, and what it might be better for you to forget.”

Bod said, “Silas. You _can’t._ You can’t make her forget me.” 

“It will be safest that way,” said Silas, simply. “For her, if not for all of us.”

“Don’t- don’t I get a say in this?” Asked Scarlett.

Silas said nothing. Bod took a step toward Scarlett, said, “Look, it’s over. I know it was hard. But. We did it. You and me. We beat them.”

Her head was shaking gently, as if she was denying everything she saw, everything she was experiencing. 

She looked up at Silas, and said only, “I want to go home. Please?”

Silas nodded. 

Scarlett couldn’t bring herself to look back. She wanted to see him one last time, perhaps to make sure that this was real, as much as she hoped it wasn’t. But she couldn’t bear to turn to the quiet boy with a mystery, a link to her childhood, and only see something not quite human. Only feel afraid.

The man with a hand on her arm grabbed her attention. “Where are you from, Scarlett Perkins?” Silas asked.

She didn’t want to speak. Not to him. Not to anyone involved with that horrible place. She did anyway. “Glasgow,” Said Scarlett. “My mother and I moved here after she split from my dad.” It hadn’t been more than a few months or so, but it may as well have happened an age ago.

“I see. And did you enjoy living there?” Silas asked, with no particular interest in his voice.

Whatever his aim was, talking was taking her mind off of the graveyard, and everything else that had happened that night. “It was alright. At least I had friends there. Friends who were…” She didn’t finish. She wasn’t sure what she would have said, anyway. Alive? Normal? Human?

Silas spoke. “Then you would prefer to return to Scotland.”

Her head snapped up. “I could go back to Glasgow? You can do that?”

“I can.” He said. “But there are more important matters for us to discuss.”

“Right,” Said Scarlett, thoroughly not wanting to have that conversation. Her heart was pounding. In fact, she wasn't sure it had stopped pounding since this morning. 

Silas said, “Firstly, you needn't remember anything about the Jacks of All Trades. Only that Mr. Jay Frost was nothing more than a friend, who has regrettably had to leave town, and I should think he won't be returning.”

For a moment, Scarlett could feel her memories slipping, like trying to hold water in her hands and watching it fall back to the earth, but then the moment passed, and some of her uneasiness lessened. “That's unfortunate,” Scarlett said.

“Indeed.” Said Silas.

With her mind off of whatever had been bothering her, she drifted back to thinking about the boy. “Bod,” Said Scarlett. “Is he going to be okay?” 

“That doesn’t matter anymore.” Silas said.

Scarlett blinked. “No, I suppose it doesn’t.” And all thought of Nobody Owens slipped from her mind. She had an imaginary friend by that name when she was a child, who lived in the graveyard in the Old Town. After all, she was so lonely, having moved so much as a little girl. It was completely natural that she would try to create her own. 

“In fact,” Her thoughts were scattered when Silas spoke. “The graveyard is not important. You don’t need to think about what happened there. You’ve visited once or twice since you returned, but not since meeting Mr. Frost.” 

She hummed, like this was the first time she was hearing about this, but he was right. She hadn’t been there since she took the wrong bus and ended up in the wrong side of town. “Maybe I should see it again, before we go back to Glasgow.” 

“You shouldn’t.” Said Silas. “Where do you live?” He asked as they approached an intersection.

“102a Acacia Avenue,” She didn’t even flinch about giving this man her address. 

He nodded in acknowledgement. “Very well. Where were we?” He asked, as if Silas had ever forgotten anything in his entire existence. 

“We were talking about the graveyard, and the…” She trailed off. She found herself unable to muster any more information than that.

“Yes. Today has been exceptionally mundane, hasn’t it?” Said Silas, conversationally.

Scarlett shrugged. “I guess. I went to visit Mr. Frost. He said he found something out about… about…” 

“An old cold case from several years ago. It turned out to be nothing.” He said.

She wagged her finger. “Right, right.”

He seemed satisfied that there were no gaps in her memory, or lack thereof. She was altogether more light and carefree, now. Much more like a young lady should feel on a nice day.

Scarlett couldn’t remember why she was walking alongside this man, and when she apologized, she couldn’t remember his name, he answered by telling her that he was no one important. She’d taken the wrong bus, a mistake she’d made before, and he was escorting her home. It was a big city, after all, and she was new in town. It would be easy to get lost. 

After a long walk, and an increasingly awkward conversation as she realized that this man was not much for conversation, Silas was sure that she wouldn’t remember anything of too much interest, but he dared not to leave any room for error. As they approached her doorstep, he said, “Scarlett, you should rest. You hit your head pretty hard when you tripped. I’m sure it still hurts.”

It did, she realized. In talking to the man she hadn’t remembered she’d fallen at all. “I’ll do that.”

Ms. Perkins was practically jumping on her daughter when she walked. She was so preoccupied that she didn’t notice the tall man in black standing in her doorway.

“I can’t believe you stayed out so long!” Noona exclaimed. “I was worried sick-”

Scarlett stepped away from her mother. “If I had a phone, this wouldn’t be a problem.” She said. “Mum, this is, uh…” She cleared her throat. “He walked me home.” 

Silas nodded in her direction. “I was hoping to have a conversation with you.”

“Me?” Said Ms. Perkins, turning to her daughter. “Did you get into trouble?” 

“There is no trouble.” Silas answered for her. He gestured to the table. “Sit.”

The women and Silas gathered at the table. He asked a few questions, but it took very little prompting for Noona to talk about herself. She told him about how she’d always loved Glasgow, but she couldn’t bear to be around Scarlett’s father, even in such a large city. The man was very convincing, and made the point that it would invariably be better for Noona’s daughter to be with her father. Coming from Scarlett, that point would have made Noona furious, but when the stranger suggested it, it made sense. So much so that they decided it would be better to move back.

The two women started to ignore the man sitting at their table, as if they’d forgotten he was there at all.

“I’ll be on my way, then.” Silas said, shortly. Before he left, however, he said, “I should think Scarlett is old enough to have her own cellphone, wouldn’t you agree?” 

Ms. Perkins considered this, and much to Scarlett’s joy, she nodded. “Yes, I do. Thank you.” 

“There’s no need to thank me. In fact, there’s no need to remember me at all.” 

 

Silas returned to the graveyard and found Bod sitting in the amphitheater by the obelisk, his face set.

“How is she?”

“I took her memories,” said Silas. “They will return to Glasgow. She has friends there.” 

“How could you make her forget about me?”

Silas said, “People want to forget the impossible. It makes their world safer.”

Bod said, “I liked her.”

“I’m sorry.”


End file.
